Reid lashes ‘sellout’ PNP workers
Published:Wednesday | July 5, 2023 | 12:09 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
SYLVAN REID, the People’s National Party (PNP) candidate-caretaker for the Salt Spring division in St James Central, has accused key party members of selling out the previous general elections to the Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
Three years ago, the St James Municipal Corporation, under the leadership of the JLP’s Homer Davis as chairman and mayor of Montego Bay, used its majority to remove Reid and another PNP political representative from their positions as councillors because they had missed three consecutive meetings. Gladstone Bent, who was elected to represent the Catadupa division, was the other PNP member removed.
Despite efforts to prove that medical reasons were the cause of their missing the meetings, the two were expelled pursuant to Section 30 (1B) of The Local Governance Act, which states, “If a person elected to the office of mayor or councillor ... is absent from three consecutive ordinary meetings of the council without the leave of council ... , that person shall, thereupon, become disqualified immediately and shall cease to hold the office.”
“Some of you are going to feel it – to sell out the PNP – and I don’t care what you want to take it as,” Reid said while addressing delegates and supporters of the party during the public session of the Mount Salem division conference, where the PNP’s Kerry Thomas is the sitting councillor.
As the Sunday night divisional conference at Mount Salem Primary and Infant School was in full swing, Reid accused the internal political workers of selling out the PNP in the most recent national elections.
“I can tell you what I mean. Some of you are not going to end up as indoor workers because unuh sell out indoors. Some of you are not going to end up as cluster managers because unuh a sellout; some of you are not going to be any runners because unuh a sellout,” Reid declared.
“We’re getting radical around here,” he said to the energetic, horn-blowing supporters, noting that he is personally aware of PNP voters who refused to vote over nonsense and are now suffering for it.
“I know PNP (voters) in the last election who did not vote for PNP because they (claimed) that they don’t like the PNP; go away with that. Anybody the PNP puts forward, it is not like the Jamaica Labour Party – go out and vote for them,” the former councillor demanded.
He claimed that, because of their actions, many PNP supporters who betrayed the party are now unable to afford the same staple foods they did when the PNP was in power, pointing to the high levels of inflation, in spite of reports of economic growth.
“That is why some of you can’t buy chicken back; that is why some of you can’t buy hot wings; and that’s why some of you have to be begging because unuh sell out unuh soul,” Ried charged.
In addition, he urged those whose loyalty is being questioned to stop selling out the party for financial gain and instead stand united with the PNP in their efforts to retake state power.
“Let me talk to some of you licky-licky PNP because I realised that some of the Labourite councillors carry some of you behind closed doors and on the parish council steps and then give unuh a cheque to sell out PNP,” he continued.